Post by wheelspinner on Apr 14, 2009 2:06:54 GMT -5
December, 2001
Well folks, the big moment has arrived!
The house is all packed up, except for the crap left lying all over the floor. I have Got A Visa Stamp, and all the tickets and insurance are all taken care of.
I am now an expert in all matters USA, and can confidently field any question except these two: Where will you be working? and When do you start? However these are trivial matters and we are not allowing ourselves to be distracted by them.
I am seriously considering purchasing a Melbourne Demons jumper, to make a proud display of my loyalties to the heathen Americans. Methinks I will await the outcome of tonight's Board Election. If the Club self-immolates, the jumpers should be cheaper.
My wife and I have Mutually Agreed not to have a 20th Anniversary tomorrow. We will go to a swank restaurant and spend all the money we save by denying the children Christmas Presents, but other than that we have decided we have quite enough crap to pack.
Our farewell parties have gone well, although my wimp friends only drank about 18 of the 50 wine bottles I laid on for the party. I am punishing them by bringing them to our family Christmas functions and forcing them to drink the rest.
My mother in law and father in law came down with their ute to Help Us Pack. Translated this means that MIL took over the whole house and put everything in bloody boxes everywhere where we can't find it. The muscle in the house (FIL, me and the boys - lol) were directed to such menial tasks as "carry that box down to the garage", "take this crap to the op shop" and "take that crap to the tip". (At the tip, FIL found a used whistle, which he promptly stuck in his mouth and blew. )
My MIL has yet again proven how wonderful she is. We are far too disorganised to have managed getting so much crap into boxes without her help.
My fellow muscle and I addressed our Kitchen Dresser yesterday, with a view to moving it into a furniture van. Alas, it did not Want To Go, and took a 10 cm square patch of the wall with it as a Keepsake. We appreciated its sentiments but were very firm with it and made it Give It Back. Fortunately our purchaser intends to Renovate The Kitchen as his first priority, so our Guilty Consciences are assuaged by the suspicion that he probably Could Not Give A Toss. If he Makes A Fuss, we will donate him a tin of Spakfilla.
We have arranged with the boys that they will not be getting Christmas presents until we reach SF. This is a Devious Plot on our part - they do not yet realise the ability of their parents to fake short-term memory loss over trivial matters like "But you toooold us ...". They will eventually learn of our duplicity, and this will be a Valuable Life Lesson for them.
You may recall the Difficult Moral Problem I faced a while ago of taking either my books or the children. A happy compromise has been reached where the children have agreed to split my most important books among their suitcases. As a trade-off , I have assisted them to get rid of a lot of their toys, CDs and other useless items.
I have had a lot of sad farewells in the last week or so, and some people I know I may never see again. We have now reached a Point Of No Return, and it is catching up with us a little.
Well folks, the big moment has arrived!
The house is all packed up, except for the crap left lying all over the floor. I have Got A Visa Stamp, and all the tickets and insurance are all taken care of.
I am now an expert in all matters USA, and can confidently field any question except these two: Where will you be working? and When do you start? However these are trivial matters and we are not allowing ourselves to be distracted by them.
I am seriously considering purchasing a Melbourne Demons jumper, to make a proud display of my loyalties to the heathen Americans. Methinks I will await the outcome of tonight's Board Election. If the Club self-immolates, the jumpers should be cheaper.
My wife and I have Mutually Agreed not to have a 20th Anniversary tomorrow. We will go to a swank restaurant and spend all the money we save by denying the children Christmas Presents, but other than that we have decided we have quite enough crap to pack.
Our farewell parties have gone well, although my wimp friends only drank about 18 of the 50 wine bottles I laid on for the party. I am punishing them by bringing them to our family Christmas functions and forcing them to drink the rest.
My mother in law and father in law came down with their ute to Help Us Pack. Translated this means that MIL took over the whole house and put everything in bloody boxes everywhere where we can't find it. The muscle in the house (FIL, me and the boys - lol) were directed to such menial tasks as "carry that box down to the garage", "take this crap to the op shop" and "take that crap to the tip". (At the tip, FIL found a used whistle, which he promptly stuck in his mouth and blew. )
My MIL has yet again proven how wonderful she is. We are far too disorganised to have managed getting so much crap into boxes without her help.
My fellow muscle and I addressed our Kitchen Dresser yesterday, with a view to moving it into a furniture van. Alas, it did not Want To Go, and took a 10 cm square patch of the wall with it as a Keepsake. We appreciated its sentiments but were very firm with it and made it Give It Back. Fortunately our purchaser intends to Renovate The Kitchen as his first priority, so our Guilty Consciences are assuaged by the suspicion that he probably Could Not Give A Toss. If he Makes A Fuss, we will donate him a tin of Spakfilla.
We have arranged with the boys that they will not be getting Christmas presents until we reach SF. This is a Devious Plot on our part - they do not yet realise the ability of their parents to fake short-term memory loss over trivial matters like "But you toooold us ...". They will eventually learn of our duplicity, and this will be a Valuable Life Lesson for them.
You may recall the Difficult Moral Problem I faced a while ago of taking either my books or the children. A happy compromise has been reached where the children have agreed to split my most important books among their suitcases. As a trade-off , I have assisted them to get rid of a lot of their toys, CDs and other useless items.
I have had a lot of sad farewells in the last week or so, and some people I know I may never see again. We have now reached a Point Of No Return, and it is catching up with us a little.
